Sunday, February 19, 2017

Mama Sadie's Triplets

Mama Sadie went into labor late Thursday evening. She had triplets last year and was looking as large again this year. I missed her delivery last year by about a half an hour and one of her lambs was stillborn, so I was glad we caught her going into labor.
Her first lamb was coming out with just the nose, no feet. So, gloving up again, I had to bring the lambs legs around to come out with the head. Once everything was in position she delivered quickly. A nice ram lamb. She has previously refused to nurse her ram lambs so I was happy to see how attentive she was to this lamb. She readily let him nurse too. The second and third lambs came out easily and my daughter took care of their deliveries. Final tally, two ram lambs and a ewe lamb. And she will only let the firstborn lamb nurse. It wasn't ram lambs she wouldn't let nurse, it's that she will only let her firstborn nurse. Last year we went out to the barn day and night to hold her still so the lamb she wouldn't let nurse could eat. Not this year! Now that they have had their colostrum we are beginning to bottlefeed them.

We will try to sell the bottle lambs so someone else can take over that chore.